Teaching Youth of Today About Online Presentation and Ways It Will Impact Professional Future
Created by: Nicole Mortimer, Johanna Kenney, Heidi Fernandez and Tracey Wallace
Overview:
This page is designed to teach high school students about the importance of online presentation and online identity. This concept will be taught through two formal lessons and through students participating in blogs associated with these lessons. Students will use the blogs to discuss and reflect upon how their opinions about online presentation and identity are evolving as they progress through the lessons. These concepts will be communicated through constructive and authentic learning tasks. Students will be required to find stories on how negative presentations can impact their profession futures, they will make generalizations about appropriate and inappropriate online behavior and they will use blogging to reflect upon, discuss and debate controversial online behavior.
*Lesson plans and blogs are located in sidebar
Purpose:
The purpose of this project is to give students the knowledge and skills needed to successfully and safely navigate through online environments as it pertains to developing an online identity. This project will help educate students in the risks and possibilities of online identities and will seek to demonstrate the importance of digital citizenship, netiquette, and personal responsibility.
Goal: The goal of this project is to teach students the importance of protecting and developing an appropriate online identity(ies) and the ways in which these identities might impact their future professional lives.
Rationale: For many, the world today is mobile and digital. Students today are familiar with and can spend hours a day on social networks, chat, virtual worlds, and online gaming creating numerous identities. Each of these sites require users to sign a user agreement and develop a profile. Some of these profiles can include age, race, favorite movies/books/music, relationship status, etc. Forming these personal pages plays a profound impact on adolescent identity formation. As [adolescents] consider if and how they are going to draft themselves into existence online they are forced to reflect on who they are and how they will be viewed by others...in doing so, they make choices that will reflect on how others view them, and thus are pushed to think critically about what kind of self-statments they offer through personal sites" (Stern, 2008, p. 114). This stage of identity formation can be crucial to adolescents and they need to be taught how to create their online identities in a safe way that will not have negative repercussions on their future.
Adolescents also need to understand this information can be viewed and used by hundreds or even thousands of people and corporations depending on the type of site and amount of personal security chosen. Every action, word, image or video uploaded or posted builds an online identity and follow a person forever, having unforeseen consequences. "Where this persistence allows digital media artifacts to reappear at inopportune or unwanted moments, they are pernicious in nature, being negative and unwanted. Identifying that negative potential and the effects that the persistence of digital artifacts may have on the lives and future of our children are the most critical issues" (Heverly, 2008, p. 200). For example, colleges, employers, and even potential colleagues can use online information to form opinions and make decisions concerning acceptance, employment, and even social status. Few adults fully understand how an ill-conceived post can negatively impact their professional future, for young students the idea that one mistake can follow them forever can be especially hard to grasp. It is important that young people understand that their online identity reflects on them in the professional world, today, tomorrow, and forever.
References:
Heverly, R. A. (2008). Growing up digital: control and pieces of the digital life. Digital Youth, Innovation and the Unexpected, 199-218. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262633598.199
Stern, S. (2008). Producing sites, exploring identities: youth online authorship. Digital Youth, Innovation and the Unexpected, 95-118. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262524843.095
Teaching Youth of Today About Online Presentation and Ways It Will Impact Professional Future
Created by: Nicole Mortimer, Johanna Kenney, Heidi Fernandez and Tracey WallaceOverview:
This page is designed to teach high school students about the importance of online presentation and online identity. This concept will be taught through two formal lessons and through students participating in blogs associated with these lessons. Students will use the blogs to discuss and reflect upon how their opinions about online presentation and identity are evolving as they progress through the lessons. These concepts will be communicated through constructive and authentic learning tasks. Students will be required to find stories on how negative presentations can impact their profession futures, they will make generalizations about appropriate and inappropriate online behavior and they will use blogging to reflect upon, discuss and debate controversial online behavior.*Lesson plans and blogs are located in sidebar
Purpose:
The purpose of this project is to give students the knowledge and skills needed to successfully and safely navigate through online environments as it pertains to developing an online identity. This project will help educate students in the risks and possibilities of online identities and will seek to demonstrate the importance of digital citizenship, netiquette, and personal responsibility.Goal:
The goal of this project is to teach students the importance of protecting and developing an appropriate online identity(ies) and the ways in which these identities might impact their future professional lives.
Rationale:
For many, the world today is mobile and digital. Students today are familiar with and can spend hours a day on social networks, chat, virtual worlds, and online gaming creating numerous identities. Each of these sites require users to sign a user agreement and develop a profile. Some of these profiles can include age, race, favorite movies/books/music, relationship status, etc. Forming these personal pages plays a profound impact on adolescent identity formation. As [adolescents] consider if and how they are going to draft themselves into existence online they are forced to reflect on who they are and how they will be viewed by others...in doing so, they make choices that will reflect on how others view them, and thus are pushed to think critically about what kind of self-statments they offer through personal sites" (Stern, 2008, p. 114). This stage of identity formation can be crucial to adolescents and they need to be taught how to create their online identities in a safe way that will not have negative repercussions on their future.
Adolescents also need to understand this information can be viewed and used by hundreds or even thousands of people and corporations depending on the type of site and amount of personal security chosen. Every action, word, image or video uploaded or posted builds an online identity and follow a person forever, having unforeseen consequences. "Where this persistence allows digital media artifacts to reappear at inopportune or unwanted moments, they are pernicious in nature, being negative and unwanted. Identifying that negative potential and the effects that the persistence of digital artifacts may have on the lives and future of our children are the most critical issues" (Heverly, 2008, p. 200). For example, colleges, employers, and even potential colleagues can use online information to form opinions and make decisions concerning acceptance, employment, and even social status. Few adults fully understand how an ill-conceived post can negatively impact their professional future, for young students the idea that one mistake can follow them forever can be especially hard to grasp. It is important that young people understand that their online identity reflects on them in the professional world, today, tomorrow, and forever.
References:
Heverly, R. A. (2008). Growing up digital: control and pieces of the digital life. Digital Youth, Innovation and the Unexpected, 199-218. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262633598.199
Stern, S. (2008). Producing sites, exploring identities: youth online authorship. Digital Youth, Innovation and the Unexpected, 95-118. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262524843.095